Jo Devries News Today

Craft beautiful hand-dipped candles made of beeswax as a special gift that people will cherish. These tips will get you started.

Learn more about my experience raising baby chicks indoors. I had to figure out how to raise baby chicks in winter during 2020 to ensure their survival and grow my flock.

On the cold, rainy days when it’s impossible to work outside, I love to curl up with a selection of fabulous yarns and design and create comfortable, practical clothing.

If you have not yet tried it, I strongly recommend taking the leap. This planet is our most valuable asset and real estate is always a solid investment.

Wild garlic (background) with trout leaf (foreground) Photo by Jo deVries I am so happy that we’ve already enjoyed over a month of spring weather here in Ontario, Canada. The chickens are doing well, and I’ve just been blessed with my third hatch of chicks (and one awesome miracle! See next month’s blog post). My two weaner pigs have only had to endure a bit of snow and enjoy snuggling in their bed of straw when not digging up the earth. They are tearing up everything except the elderber...

Sweater before changing waistband and before washing. Photos by Jo deVries This months’ blog post is a follow-up to last November’s Knitting with Natural Fibres. Most autumns, I start planning at least one knitting project. Knitting makes my long winters in Ontario, Canada, pass more pleasurably. It also produces a warm garment that keeps me cozy and happy while knitting it. I usually start by looking through my inventory, to see if anything catches my interest. My yarn collection was sev...

Indoor Gardening  The April/May 2020 issue of Mother Earth News featured an article titled “The Garden of Rebirth.”  In it, author William Rubel had many clever tips on regrowing vegetables from the unused root portion of grocery store veggies. I followed his advice and put some green onion roots, and a few rotten beets that got overlooked in the root cellar, in my garden. A couple of weeks later, I began harvesting green onions and beet top leaves for salads. All free for the picking! I...

  Newspaper comics and pictures make great gift wrap. As I reflect on the past year, I remember how I felt last year in December. The number 2020 simply sounded like a year of promise and opportunity. I was finishing up writing my second book. I was staying with my son Jordan, in Ottawa, for a couple of months. The sun wasn’t shining enough to power my tiny solar set-up at home to operate my laptop, so I decided to stay with Jordan from mid-December to March. As my stay was coming to an end,...